Prince: No more controversy
The Michigan Daily - Friday, November 9, 1984 - Page 7
x By John Logie
'MONDAY NIGHT'S Purple Rain
" Revue was thought-out, rehearsed, and
dynamic. In terms of performance, it
would be hard to fault Prince and the
Revolution. In terms of selection of
material, it is easy.
While many aspects of Prince's
character are controversial and am-
biguous, The Purple Rain Revue will
eliminate one area of discussion. This
tour will make it clear that Prince is
A willing to embrace the audience that
didn't know he existed until his "Little
Y Red Corvette" and "1999" videos
showed up on MTV.
With this concert, Prince has shut the
door on his R-rated past. It's almost as
" if he recognized that mothers would be
taking their thirteen year-old daughters
: to this concert, and set out to convince
- them that he's really not a rude boy
anymore.
If you've listened to that Purple Rain
album and seen the movie, you've seen
more than half of this concert. Prince
did every song on the record except
"Take Me With U." One Must
wonder why he didn't do that song, a
duet with Appolonia, since Appolonia
did show up to bop across the stage
during one of the show's long musical
o interludes. Maybe the audience wanted
to see a rehash of the last three years of
Prince Material, but did they really want to
see the exact same choreography?
Monday's "Darling Nikki" was car-
bon-copied from the movie, and "Little
Red Corvette" was xeroxed from the
video. Purple Rain matched-up down to
the kiss Prince placed on guitarist
Wendy's cheek.
Of the fourteen songs Prince perfor-
' med, nine were from the Purple Rain
;sessions, four were from 1999 and only one
from Controversy.
3 It seems that Prince no longer wants
r ; to be associated with Controversy and
Dirty Mind, and this is unfortunate,
c since those two albums were among the
most innovative and daring records to
K - be released in the 70's. Prince is now a
tasteful commodity, suitable for mass
consumption.
Prince's set was 105 minutes long, but
at least forty minutes of this time was
consumed by theatrical musical in-
terludes, five minute absences, and
hurling tambourines and flowers to the
crowd. For some, especially those who
happened to catch something, this may
have been exciting. Teenage girls seem
ed to relish the breaks in the show, and
used them to scream their devotion.
Anyone who has been listening to Prin-
ce since Dirty Mind couldn't help but
view this time as time wasted. In a
tighter show, forty minutes is eight
songs, and there were enough notable
omissions to make Prince's use of time
irksome, if not intolerable.
Also bothersome was Prince's con-
stant teasing of the audience. At one
point he claimed he was too tired to go
on, knowing damn well that this
audience wasn't about to pay almost
twenty dollars to see a Purple Rain
Revue, and not hear him do "Purple
Rain." Prince also paraded Appolonia 6
and Jerome of The Time across the
stage, and one has to wonder why. It is
criminal to have those people there
without having them perform.
As an opening act, Shiela E. demon-
strated glitz and proficiency, but
lacked the good humor that The Time
and Vanity 6 provided in past tours.
Shiela E.'s set was marred by a
power outage during "Erotic City,"
which at first prompted boos from a
confused audience. Shiela demon-
strated true showmanship by working
this to her advantage, returning to the
stage shouting, "I ain't gonna leave
Detroit without finishing my set." The
audience welcomed her back, and was
most appreciative of her set-closer,
"The Glamorous Life." Shiela is adept,
flashy, and enjoyable, but suffers from
a musical sound that is nearly in-
distinguishable from that of her men-
tor. If Prince is, in fact, playing
Svengali with Shiela, he should not
leave his signature so clearly.
Prince's set was pandering and in-
dulgent in terms of selection. Even
more surprising was the fact that
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Associated Press
Prince continues his concert series at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
very little in this show could termed ob-
jectionable by the Moral Majority.
Prince simply wasn't at all daring. He
played it safe.
For ninety percent of the people
seeing this show, that will be just fine.
This show is what they are paying to
see, what they want to see, but it sure
would be nice to see Prince challenge
them to accept some music, some
politics, some morality, and some con-
troversy that they haven't yet accep-
ted.
Prince is an excellent live performer.
My hope is that he once again will be a
challenging live performer.
Attack of the killer algae and it
S
music
By Eric Mattson
. Q uick! What do you think of when
you think of algae? Mold? Slime? Sea
creatures oozing through a swamp?
Your first French kiss? Spyro Gyra?
Spyro Gyra, for those of you who
took "Biology for the Non-Scientist," is
a one-celled green algae considered to
be a universal life form. It's also the
name of a jazz/rock/reggae/a-few-
other-things band which appeared at
Hill Auditorium Wednesday night. And,
in the immortal words of me, they were
y good. Damn good. Better than any
jazz/rock/reggae/a-few-other things
band should be allowed to be.
6 What makes Spyro Gyra unique is its
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Athens, Georgia 30602
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L-----------------------17
willingness to experiment with all types
of music. Its tight ensemble sound flows
easily into a five-minute percussion
solo or a marimba-keyboard duet. All
seven members of the group were
showcased at some point in the show,
and each of them took advantage of the
opportunity to vacillate somewhere
between creativity and the Twilight
Zone.
Tim Stone's bass solo, for instance,
was simply sublime. Stone fretted
around until the entire audience had
one collective aural orgasm.
Another piece, "Laser Material,"
sounded like the soundtrack from a
Clint Eastwood movie. I can just see the
promos-"Clint Eastwood is... Laser
Material. He's tough, and he carries a
big gun, and he kills almost everyone
with his big gun. Bang. Bang." Or
something like that. Spyro Gyra's
saxophonist and leader, Jay Becken-
stein, played the part of Clint, except he
carried an electric sax instead of a .44
magnum.
Spyro Gyra's keyboardist and
marimba player got together for a duet
that was, well... unique. It was called
"Pacific Sunrise," but it must have
been an utterly bizarre sunrise. It was
weird-almost alien. One might even
think that the song was written under
the influence of some sort of foreign
substance. One might even hope that is
was. In any case, it was a refreshing
change from anything you would ever
hear on a top-40 station, although it
would be easy to go quite mad if you
listened to that sort of music all the
time.
There were other things: an electric
keyboard guitar, sax solos galore and
glorious, a percussionist who danced
like a banshee, amazing guitar solos,
some of the most polished ensemble
playing land, and a heck of a lot of fun.
After Beckenstein said good night to
the appreciative crowd, a standing
ovation prompted the band to come
back out and perform their first big hit,
"Morning Dance." Beckenstein and the
rest of the band obviously got into it.
The only problem was that they might
have been a little too into it, i.e. it was
very loud. But overall, it was good.
Damn good.
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A piano recital
(ContinedfromPage6) compris
at The Vermont Mozart Festival in the Bagatel
Burlington, Vermont. His future Posthum
engagements which include appearan- All are i
ces with the symphonies of Chicago, to be a n
New York, London, Budapest, and
Rome are deservedly anticipated as he
has been enthusiastically received all
over the world and has received much
critical acclaim.
With that note there is not better
reason than to definitely attend Rose's
Sunday evening program which will be
Hoodoo
(Contined from Page 6)
well worth looking int
sed of Beethoven's Seven cert.
les, Schubert's Sonata in A I've heard him, and he brings no
nous, and also music of Liszt. disappointments, only favorable regard
nvited to attend what is surely and concurrence.
most emotionally arousing con- -Neil Galanter
r
the desired quotient of unpretentious
danceable fun. Puff-haired lead singer
Dave Fauklner was in fine tattered
voice, and fellow members James J.
Baker (action-packed drums), Clyde
Bramley and Brad Shepherd (both of
whom did pretty fine backing and lead
vocals on occasion) provided equal
amounts of animation. Perhaps if they
were more limitedthe Gurus would at-
tract a fanatical minority
devotion-but it's doubtlessly better-
that they manage to tread so well the
fine line between slickness and grunge,
never quite hitting the ecstacy button
but pleasing consistently. This is a band
to watch out for-they could just as
easily achieve radio/MTV stardom as
opt for cultdom.
East Lansing's wonderfully named 22
Cave Gods opened the show with a
fairly strong and varied set of power
pop, with elements of funk and wavey
playfulness. They started off very
promisingly with a song that blended a
danceable beat with perfectly on-pitch
screaming and a refrain of what
seemed to be South Seas mumbo jum-
bo. From then on it ws basically
downhill, despite good playing of a few
good musical ideas. A major problem
was the female lead singer, whose over-
polished emoting and gesticulations
could have benefitted from a lot more
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it's the toughest job you'll ever love.